


Mythos

by ProfessorGoggles



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cultural Differences, F/F, Fantasy setting, Historical Exposition, Juicing, Lactation, Lactation Kink, Miscommunication, Monster Girls, Monster girl tf, Nongraphic violence, Oppressive Theocracy, Original Characters - Freeform, Other, but a really tepid one, denial of personhood, queer discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:21:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28353852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorGoggles/pseuds/ProfessorGoggles
Summary: Two souls, from opposite sides of the fence. One thinks she's human. The other knows she isn't.
Kudos: 8





	Mythos

Percy walked the dirt road from the market, as it wound its way towards her home. She would not normally say that it wound; in truth it was a particularly straight road when taken in consideration of the hills and copses of trees through which it passed. However, though she made the trip every day, today the path seemed to weave strangely, and the sun seemed to beat down with a different intensity, and she found herself struck all around by the inescapable feeling that something was off about the whole affair.

She glanced over her shoulder, at the fence which ran along the west side of the road. And then startled. To her surprise, there was a girl leaning on it, scarcely a few yards away. The girl had reddish skin, which changed gradually to green towards her extremities and the crown of the head, and was covered in a messy scrub of shiny, serrated leaves, crowding in around her round face and just reaching down to brush her shoulders at the back. She was perfectly still, and simply stared back at Percy, her eyes dark and inscrutable. She was a mytho, and a berrygirl more specifically.

-

Percy had learned about mythos at school, of course. Everyone knew that the great kingdom of Heria bordered the equally vast Primordial Woods on its eastern flank. And one certainly thought they knew what kingdoms did with forests. But affairs between the two hadn’t quite worked out that way here. The woods were older and more gnarled than the history of humanity itself, and filled to the brim with perilous monsters and cruel faeries. Once, in the very place where her village stood, humans had tried to beat back the trees, and had found the forest punishing in its retaliation. Skirmishes turned to war, and some fairly substantial defeats taught the people of Heria respect for the forces of nature.

Eventually, her history classes told her, the king’s wisest, most powerful wizards had devised a spell that would allow them to commune with the consciousness at the heart of the primordial forest itself, and the negotiations that followed had finally brought about peace.

The mythos had been another fruit of those negotiations. As a sign of good will, the primordial had, for lack of a better word, domesticated some of its minions and given them over to the power of the kingdom. Berrygirls, for example, were domesticated dryads, sharing a dryad’s ability to subsist on sunlight and produce magical substances inside their body, but lacking their habit of lying in wait to butcher trespassers. Taurs gave milk that was at least as much like a human’s as a cow’s, and helped local babies grow up strong and healthy. Any garment woven from faunwool did an uncannily good job protecting its wearer from the elements. And the seer were another matter entirely.

Which was all very important for her to know, as they were a vital part of her village’s prosperity. All the mythos were cared for on the Royal Primordial Preserve, or as the locals simply called it, the Farm (capitalization only slightly audible), whose many-acred sprawl began just a few acres over from her family farmstead. And yet for all that, she’d never actually seen a mytho. Until today.

-

“Hi,” she said nervously, as the girl continued to stare.

“Hello,” the girl replied, her voice flat.

“I’m Percy.” She took a few steps forward.

The mytho stared back at her, and leaned back, away from the fence until she was upright. A moment of awkward silence stretched.

“What’s your name?” she eventually pressed on.

“Mara,” she replied.

Percy bowed playfully. “Thank you for showing yourself to me, Mara!”

The red girl was still difficult to read, even knowing her name, but she seemed slightly uncomfortable. “Didn’t,” she said.

Which was impossible. You could only see a mytho in their own home if they let you, or if you got help from a spell, or if you had The Sight.

“Have Sight,” Mara continued.

“But that’s impossible! I was tested just last month, and I didn’t have it then!”

“Yes. Didn’t.” 

Percy was taken aback. “How do you know that?”

“Here. Every day. Bright spot.” 

“Every day?”

“Every day.”

A fragmented reply, but still possible to understand. This dryad had watched her walk past every day for perhaps the last five years, and she’d been none the wiser. It was a disconcerting thought.

“So what, I just woke up today and I could see mythos?”

Mara shrugged. “Happens.”

Technically she should be excited. She’d always been fascinated with the fey. In her youth, she’d even fantasized that she had seen fairies around the house. But it was a lot to take in, and it was also abundantly clear that the berrygirl wasn’t particularly in the mood to talk. She tried to keep her harrumphs to herself. “Well, gods be wit’ ye then, and uh, have a fine day I guess.”

\- - -

The next day was brighter and hotter, which made sense. It was trending towards summer after all. Percy worried for the present in her bag. She hoped fey folk weren’t too fussy.

But there the girl was, either way. Same place as yesterday, true to her word. Mara watched warily as Percy approached, picking a parcel out of her bag and delicately unwrapping it. She bowed her head dramatically, and held out the item with both arms for Mara to take. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable yesterday,” she said.

“What is?” Mara asked succinctly.

“It’s a sandwich. Made with only the freshest local produce!”

Mara raised an eyebrow. She brought the sandwich to her nose, sniffing it. After a second she deftly reached between the slices of bread and pulled out the sliced summer sausage at the centre, which her sharp teeth were soon masticating while she discarded the rest.

Dryads were carnivorous, Percy remembered, when they weren’t subsisting solely on the light of the sun. But Mara didn’t seem offended by being given human food. Judging by the way she was still working at the summer sausage, she was enjoying it quite a bit. The human girl sat down in the grass, feigning tiredness to give herself an excuse to keep watching the berrygirl eat. The consequences of her own “gift”, being a part of this world, were still equal parts fascinating and disquieting to her.

After a few minutes, a deep bell rang some distance away. Mara turned.

“Where are you going?” Percy asked.

“It’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“Juicing.”

"!" That Mara said it so calmly did not make it any less startling for Percy. How did one get the juice out of a berrygirl? A number of disquieting possibilities swam through her head, now. Perhaps there was some sort of spigot, or… Her head nodded, as her eyes drifted downwards to inspect Mara’s body for potential egress points, but she stopped herself. Instead, she stiffened and kept her gaze above Mara’s neck, as she studiously had endeavored to every conscious moment since meeting the berrygirl. After all, she told herself, it would be terribly rude to look elsewhere given her perpetually nude state of living, wouldn’t it?

“…”

“Does it… is that painful???” Percy stammered hesitantly.

Mara looked at the ground. “… No.”

“Oh, well thank you for tolerating me,” she replied quickly. “I’ll try not to bother you again!”

Mara glanced back at her one last time, and disappeared soundlessly into the brush.

\- - -

“And so, the gods of Chaos sent the wildlings to tempt us, with their carefree and, ahem, gregarious lifestyle. But we must each of us stand firm! They can live their lives unbonded, in filth, and be none the worse off for it, for they lack a human soul. But do not be deceived; shun this path; hold tight to bonds and obligations you have to your fellow man, your fellow woman, your king and your gods, and live a committed life. For if you do not, where will you find the strength to resist turning to wickedness?”

“Why is he always on about mythos?” the boy to her right whispered. “He’s almost as obsessed with them as Percy is…”

The boy beside him replied. “Now Romulus, let’s not be impinging his brilliance’s character. I bet if he came upon an actual mytho, why, he’d seal up its wicked throat before it could say a single word to deceive him.” He made a lewd gesture to drive his point home.

The older lady beside them shushed him noisily. Fennic’s mouth was going to get him in trouble someday, Percy thought. Neither of her friends had much dedication to the divine powers, but church participation was one of the things that University admissions officers looked at, so they attended anyway. She supposed she was here for the same reason. Not that she really expected to get in, what with the whole “being a woman” thing.

She thought about the sermon. Mythos weren’t really like that, were they? Mara barely tolerated being around her, how could she be leading her down any sort of path, dark or otherwise? And it wasn’t like she had really felt… tempted, had she? She had only met the one kind of mytho, though. Maybe the more animal ones would make a compelling argument. She shivered a bit, in the warm beam of light hitting the pew.

\- - -

The next day, Percy dreaded walking home. She’d made a proper fool of herself the last two times, but she resolved she would keep her word and not bother Mara again. She kept her eyes straight ahead the moment she stepped on the path.

“Hello,” Mara spoke up, just as she walked past the red-coloured girl.

Percy startled. “Yes?” she replied warily, surprised that the mytho had addressed her this time.

“Yes,” Mara replied. She looked slightly confused.

Percy waited for her to continue. When Mara didn’t, she replied “Do you need something?” Mara stood still. “It’s just, the last time we talked it seemed like I was intruding…”

Mara shifted, stared at a bush. “My spot. Your path.”

“I’m… not sure I understand.” Mara wasn’t the best at explaining herself.

With clear effort, Mara looked her in the eyes for the first time. “I should know you,” she said quietly.

“So you’re saying… you want me to stick around? We could talk.”

Mara only nodded, her hand cradling her opposite elbow. Percy sat down in the grass again.

What could she possibly talk to a mytho about? What common ground did their lives share? This was going to be a difficult conversation.

“So, do you play any games?”

“No,” Mara replied.

“Oh, okay.” So much for that. “I know a lot of games. I could go get one, bring it tomorrow?”

“K.”

\- - -

“This one’s called chess. It’s about war, or something. That’s not the important bit, it’s all really… abstract, I think that’s the word? It is a competition though.”

Percy suspected either of them could cross the fence, if they wanted. It seemed like more of a boundary of tradition than anything else. There were those who said that the real barrier was invisible, some sort of magic spell that prevented the mythos from doing whatever it was mythos wanted to do. The fence was really just a few sparse planks between posts, so Percy had simply set up the board underneath it, and sat down in the grass.

Mara turned the polished wooden pawn over in her hand, studying it. Percy panicked briefly, wondering if she had managed to cause offense. Surely she was overthinking things though, right? The fence between them was already wooden, it wasn’t like carpentry would really send the berrygirl into a rage. Mara seemed unperturbed, perhaps a bit bored. She was glancing off to the sides, as if looking for something else to do. So she pressed on. “There are many different pieces. Each has their own rules, and can only move in a certain way. If you move your piece onto the other player’s piece, their piece is taken away.”

“It is killed?” Mara asked.

“Uh, sure I guess? Most people don’t worry about that. You win the game by killing their king.” She handed her partner the tall, crowned piece as well.

“Why? Doesn’t look tasty.”

Percy startled a bit at that. “Well, no. It’s really not a good idea to eat any of the pieces.”

“So why play? Don’t get it.” Mara had put down the pieces, was pacing back and forth. Percy thought it looked like she felt trapped, but not, she was beginning to realize, by Percy. Percy thought she could understand that feeling.

“People say it’s good for your brain, and that it’s sophisticated. Or just that it’s fun. But what I like about it is that it makes it less hard to spend time with people. Because once the board’s set up, you don’t have to look them in the eye or talk about your life unless you want to, you can just focus on the game and that’s okay.”

Mara sat down in the grass, opposite Percy. “Will get it maybe. Go.”

-

The first day, they barely talked about themselves. Mostly, Percy just walked her mytho friend through the stages that a chess game usually took, setup through opening moves, midgame and lategame all the way through to a checkmate. They didn’t do much more than play the second or third day either, though even just three days in Mara was already astonishingly good. She picked up the rules quickly, and though Percy considered herself at least somewhat skilled she found herself consistently challenged. Mara’s leafy head contained a keen tactical mind that belied her perpetually drowsy demeanour, and Percy often felt Mara was reading her intentions like a book. 

“So what’s it like, living on the farm?” she asked.

“Watering time, juicing time. Inside during storms, doctor sometimes. Do what I want rest of time.”

“And you don’t ever think about trying to leave?”

“Soil is… you don’t know word. Soil is okay there. Not better. And sun is good here.”

“I’m surprised the sunny spots don’t get crowded.”

“Most don’t want sun.” She gestured at herself. “I am… no word either. Don’t turn yellow.”

“Turning yellow is bad?”

“On leaves yes.”

“Oh, yes that would be. So you really didn’t pick this spot just to peoplewatch then?”

Mara stood up, taking her king off the board. “Have to go. Juicing.” She gestured to herself. She did usually look a bit rounder, in… certain places… after they’d been at it for a while. This was how their talks had ended previously as well. It was kind of astonishing that they could have misaligned schedules when Mara apparently only did two things a day.

“Oh okay! Have a good day!”

Percy watched Mara’s backside disappear into the undergrowth, yet again. She realized she hadn’t asked how Mara knew what the soil out here was like.

-

“Juicing time. But want to stay.”

Percy laughed. “You’re just saying that because you’re winning!”

She swore, swore on the Most Holy, that Mara smiled a bit at that. “If late again,” Mara said, “won’t get juiced. But…” she looked around again, suddenly trepidatious.

“But what?”

“You could juice. You can.”

“I- I don’t know how that works.”

Mara suddenly got up on her haunches, leaning far forward across the board. Her breasts, those bare breasts that Percy had been trying so hard for days not to think about, practically pressing into her face between the widely spaced boards of the fence. She broke, scrambling backwards a bit. Mara sat back on her tush, staring at her with an unreadable expression as Percy messily scooped up the chess pieces. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

-

Percy twitched at something darting across the corner of her vision. She’d been seeing things, like shadows, about the house . Hearing them too, though she still couldn’t tell you what it meant to hear a shadow, even having done it. She hoped it was just stress. It had started when…

She sighed. Mara hadn’t meant to frighten her, obviously. If the mytho was going to do anything to her she would have already done it. Probably she didn’t understand that a human would make a big deal out of it.

And she’d treated her like a monster. What had she even been so afraid of, that she couldn’t just tell her she wasn’t going to do it? Mara was probably hurt, and given how shy she’d always been, who knew if she’d even hear from her again? She kicked a cabinet. ***Thud*** A shadow skittered under the couch.

-

“Mara?!” she yelled, “Mara, are you there???” Her heart dropped, there was no sign of Mara in her usual place, just the dense brush set back from either side of the path. “Mara?”

“Yes,” Mara’s voice said, from within the wall of foliage.

“Mara, you can come out, I’m not going to run away again, I’m sor-“ The bushes rustled, and out walked Mara. “Oh,” Percy observed, dumbfounded.

Mara sniffled. “Shouldn’t have asked,” she said miserably. “Wrong thing. Too far. Didn’t like. My fault.”

“It’s not!” Percy slammed her palms into the fence so hard that it rattled, startling Mara . “It’s not your fault! You just didn’t know that kind of stuff was weird for humans!”

Mara took a step back. She stared at the ground, and whispered “Knew. Always weird. But wanted it… to be you. You don’t want that. Stupid Mara.” Her tears wicked off the grass at her feet like dew.

“Oh, Mara.” Percy’s eyes were moist. Carefully, with some trepidation, she raised one leg over the fence, then the other. But once she was over she rushed Mara, before she could retreat. She wrapped the smaller girl in a tight hug and let her tears dampen her shoulder until Mara’s sobs quieted. “I’m not going to run away again,” she whispered. “I promise.” She stepped back, and looked down after she felt a wetness on her front that she hadn’t before. Bright red stains had blossomed across her white linen blouse. She rubbed one of the stains with her finger, finding it slightly sticky, and when she brought it up to her nose it smelled of fruit. When she looked back at the other girl she saw that there was red liquid running down her nude front as well, dripping from the nipples of her now tautly swollen breasts. “Mara, did you get juiced yesterday?”

“Busy,” she said. The berry girl winced slightly.

“That looks painful. I could-“

“Able to do it alone.”

Percy sighed. “You don’t have to, I’m up to it. Here, just let me…” 

Mara twitched again as Percy’s finger brushed her nipple. Percy drew her hand back slowly. “Should I stop?” Mara shook her head. As gently as she could, she grabbed the base of one of the berry girl’s disproportionately large teats, like she was milking a cow, and pulled towards herself. Mara let out a keening whine as her pent up juice spurted out, bucking her chest needily. The nipple escaped her squeezing grasp, flopping up to spray her in the face.

‘Well, I really should have seen that coming,’ she thought, and licked her lips before she could really think about it twice.

The first thing she thought was that Mara was cherry flavoured. The second was that it was the most FANTASTIC thing that Percy had ever tasted. If she’d had a third thought it probably would have been about how weird it was that she’d just drunk something she squeezed out of her chess partner, but she didn’t make it that far. Instead, her mind seemed to explode, and her head dipped down toward Mara’s crimson chest, her lips locking around the nipple greedily.

Mara moaned instantly at Percy’s hot tongue on her cool skin, feeling a sensation she’d never felt before as Percy squeezed ardently to encourage her flow again. 

She halfheartedly leaned away but Percy’s hand was around her waist, gently corralling her close, and she stopped trying entirely when her other started caring for the second nipple. Percy was still consumed with the sensation of actually TASTING Mara. Every time her flow ebbed, it felt like a profound, if brief, loss. So she'd redouble her efforts, her lips and grasp tightening greedily. Mara wrapped her arms around Percy’s head urgently, a constricting hug, her hands gripping Percy's scalp that much more tightly for each selfish tug she took at the berrygirl's left and right breasts. But the only thing Percy was aware of, beside the taste of her, was the tiny breaths Mara was taking, seemingly wherever she could manage. Mara’s eyes were scrunched, her toes dug into the soil, her hips ground against Percy, too focused on the sensation to be aware of anything but herself and the heat of the other's body. No space existed between them.

After two days without a juicing, Mara seemed almost bottomless, but eventually the two of them flopped to the grassy floor in exhaustion. 

-

Mara was the first to recover. She sat up. “You liked it. Weirdo.”

“It was the juice! It has some kind of, some magic effect. It hexed me or something.”

Mara smirked. “Farmers drink my juice. No one does that.”

Percy blushed bright pink. The blush didn’t fade, nor did the dizziness now that she was sitting up. She flopped back down amongst the blades of grass again, feeling increasingly hot. After a few moments of increasing discomfort, she turned on her side and awkwardly pulled off the sweaty, juice stained blouse that was sticking to her body. “Are you sure the juice doesn’t do anything?” She asked weakly.

Mara looked down at her quizzically. “Gives you the sight, for a bit. But you have it.”

“Really? Because it sure feels like-Aaaugh!” Percy doubled over, her bloated stomach gurgling. Mara dropped to her knees, putting her hand on Percy’s shoulder. It felt even hotter than before, and she was trembling. The blush seemed to be spreading down her neck, her skin taking on an unnatural glow.

As it reached her waist, Mara watched her juice-filled stomach recede, and the rest of her seemed to round out just a bit, her arms and legs seeming a bit fuller, her cheeks rounder, her butt more padded. Her breasts out even moreso, pumping up with the last of the juice from her stomach, becoming full and burdened, and quickly starting to leak just like Mara’s had been a few minutes before.

As the pinkening flesh reached the tips of her toes, she stopped trembling, though she still seemed pretty hot.

Her eyes opened. “What the Hells just happened?” she asked miserably.

Mara gestured to her dripping chest. “Must have mytho parent. Juice woke up magic.”

Percy collected some of the excretion and, hesitantly, started to taste it, then thought better and gave it a whiff instead. It smelled like peaches. “But, how is this possible???”

Mara gave her a look like she was stupid. “When-“

She waved the berrygirl off of that particular line of discussion. “Okay, I know how it probably happened. I meant, my parents are human! Everyone in my family is human!”

“Probably a long time ago. Happens,” Mara shrugged.

“Happens,” Percy repeated. She sat up, breathing heavily. “What am I going to do?” she cried out.

“Not so bad being mytho,” Mara said.

“But what about when everyone sees me? How am I going to explain this???”

Mara laughed in Percy’s confused face, a genuine, joyous sound that reminded her of a spring rain, and the wind passing through the leaves of the aspen grove near the pond. She wiped the tears out of her eyes. “Humans don’t see anything!” she said ardently. “Ever.” 

Noticing Percy’s expression, she continued more gently, “Trust, no one will notice. You’ll see.”

-

When Percy got home, ruined blouse draped awkwardly over her body, the shadows weren’t shadows anymore. Percy didn’t know whether her transformation had improved her sight, or they were just bolder now that she was like this, but the pixies were fluttering about her kitchen in plain view. Plain view to her anyway. Her childhood self’s triumph was short lived, as they flitted closer, encircling and pestering her like the insects they resembled. She tried to bat them away, but they persisted. She understood what they were after when they started to narrow in on her still-leaky chest. It was simply too much when one of them tried to crawl down her blouse, and she couldn’t help but let out a loud *EEP*, grabbing it and throwing it across the room.

“Is everything alright, Persephone?” she heard her mother ask from the other room.

“Yes mother!” she yelled quickly, left the groceries on the table and dashed out to the backyard before the woman could investigate, intending to wash herself off in the pond.

-

For the first time in hours, Percy didn’t feel even vaguely sticky. The pixies bothered her much less on the way in, though she had to resist the urge to swat at them in case she was in view of somebody. When she made it up to her room, the small silver mirror in her room showing her a person that looked different, but the same. She just looked… pinker. And a bit rounder. A bit if she ignored her chest, anyway. And she could see the fine hairs on her arms if she looked closely enough. Not that she hadn’t had hair there before but it was denser now, a coat of fuzz. The hair she already had had grown out a lot, anyway, on her head and elsewhere. It looked shiny and healthy. Hopefully that would stay.

She cut her hair back to its old length, tried to shave her arms and legs entirely, then gave up and settled for a longer sleeved blouse and skirts to cover up as much pinkish skin as she could. She checked the mirror again. Luckily she wore most of her clothes pretty loosely so if she bound her new breasts it’d kind of look the same. Hopefully. It’d have to do. She flopped into bed, emotionally exhausted.

\- - -

Nobody had noticed. Well they’d noticed little things. Her mother had certainly commented on the blouse she’d ruined (it had been too bad to launder without her expertise). She’d just said she had an accident at market. Fennic and Romulus either hadn’t thought anything had changed, or they were too polite to mention it. She was going to buy some concealer for the skin she couldn’t cover, but things were going so well she’d thought twice about it. It would be basically all her spending money after all. Hopefully she wouldn’t regret it.

“You were right,” Percy said to Mara, once they were back to playing chess that afternoon.

“About what?” Mara asked, melodramatically bringing a bishop down on top of one of Percy’s pawns while making a whooshing sound. She seemed to be in excellent spirits for some reason.

“About nobody noticing.”

“Percy, Percy, Percy,” Mara tutted. She put her hand on her opponent’s shoulder, looking her dead in the eye. “Humans are dumb.”

Percy snorted, then burst out laughing. Her chest twinged painfully, and she felt herself leak a bit. Mara raised an eyebrow. “Too full?” she asked knowingly.

Percy winced when she saw the small damp spots forming on her new shirt. She nodded. “Guess I’m going to be the one to dodge out early this time,” she said sheepishly.

Mara rolled her eyes. “Will do it,” she said.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to.”

“Know what feels like. Want to.” Mara gestured for her to take off her blouse. She obliged, carefully setting it to the side and kneeling up against the fence.

Mara ducked down, and she felt rather than saw her start to gently work the nipple between her sharp, pointed teeth. She hissed in anticipation of pain but Mara was clearly very experienced, it didn’t even hurt a tiny bit, despite how tender her breasts felt. Just as quickly though, Mara lips left her tit, and she felt her deftly grab it with her hand instead before the flow could stop.

“I don’t… taste bad, do I?” she asked worriedly, craning her neck over the fence to see what Mara was doing down there.

“Taste fine,” Mara said. “But not a weirdo.” Mara leant in again, quickly starting the other breast with her mouth as well, and then switching it off to the other hand.

Percy moaned as Mara worked, finally finding out what a juicing felt like from the other perspective. Her first hand pressed down, hard, simply keeping the nipple gently held between her thumb and pointer while she did the work with her palm, and she felt herself emptying fast. Mara didn’t seem to care about the peach juice splattering her chest, she just kept tweaking the other nipple between her fingertips just enough to keep a trickle going. Percy twitched with pleasure, knocking the abandoned chess game with her knee. The pieces scattered. “You win,” she said through her teeth.

“Different from going alone, yes?”

Percy nodded. Draining herself yesterday had been at best a tedious affair, in fact she’d only done enough not to leak in her bindings, which was why she was in this predicament in the first place. It wasn’t anything like having help, having it become a way to be close with someone.

Eventually she emptied out. Mara was absolutely covered in peach juice, but Percy was almost entirely dry, aside from the sweat. She looked at her shirt, then back at Mara. “I should… make it even, right?”

Mara smiled at some scene she was imagining, then shook her head reluctantly. “If I miss many juicings, they will notice. Tomorrow, each other? Should be fine.”

“Oh, well, is there anything I can get for you? I do owe you then.”

Mara thought, though not for long. “Sandwich roundstuffs, yes? Was good.”

“Oh, you mean the summer sausage? Sure, I can do that.” Percy was glad she hadn’t spent all her money already.

“How make it?”

“I… dunno exactly. It’s pretty complicated.”

“Human food complicated. Is that why it’s so good?”

“Well, I do know most of what goes into it is actually to keep it from going bad. So you don’t have to eat it right away.”

“Hmph. Mara would always eat it right away,” Mara said. She smiled.

Percy smiled.

-

She’d bought the summer sausage, at a reasonable price. There were pixies at the market though. This time they seemed more interested in the sausage than her. She let herself bat at them this time, she’d just say there were bugs if anyone asked. She wondered, had they been stealing from people’s bags all along? And if so, why were they bothering the one person here who could actually respond to them?

“What do you do about pixies?” She asked. “They’ve been bothering me since,” she gestured at herself, “this happened. I think the juice attracts them.”

“Kill one,” Mara said matter of factly, twisting Percy’s nipple idly. “Smarter than they look. Learn quick that way.” She grimaced. “Don’t eat though. Taste very bad.” She looked at Percy, who was staring at her warily. “Don’t need to be scared,” she said. “Weak. Tiny.”

“Isn’t it kind of weird though? To kill them if they’re smart?”

“Everthing kills. Humans kill, yes?”

“Yeah but what about like trees and stuff?”

Mara looked up and down the road. “Will show you!” she said, waving her over and disappearing into the brush.

Percy clambered over the fence and followed. Mara was maybe thirty metres in, where the bushes gave way to taller trees. “Trees kill smaller trees,” she said, gesturing to the leaf litter.

Percy knelt down. In amongst the dead leaves were sprouts, small and thin. Each strained in the darkness, reaching for light that wouldn’t be there until September or October, she knew. She’d never thought about what happened to trees that weren’t the first. Did they really just die before they could become anything? And how many for each one that actually grew tall? She found herself wanting to think about something else. Mara stood in the darkness, more at ease than she seemed in the light, despite her claims. This was her habitat after all. Percy smiled at the way the little sunbeams piercing the canopy dappled her skin.

“Oh, I just remembered!” Percy got the cured meat out of her pack, tossing it to the suddenly salivating Mara. “Now I know you said you weren’t going to wait, but that’s half a kilogram. If you eat it all at once the spices are gonna make you sick. It’s a gift so you can do what you want with it but maybe you want to share some with your friends?”

Mara easily cracked the summer sausage in half and tossed one of the two halves back to her. She sheepishly got out the knife and cut off a few pieces. “Thank you Mara, but I’m not going to eat all of this.” She held the remainder out to her. “Do you… really not have anyone else to share it with?”

Mara frowned, but she wrapped up the morsel in the cloth it came with and put it aside.

It sounded like things were complicated, Percy thought.

-

“I tried the thing with the pixies,” Percy remarked. “It worked.”

“Good,” Mara said. “Pixies, so annoying.”

It had worked even better than she’d expected, so far. Not only the pixies at home, but also the ones at the market were avoiding her, at least for the moment. Did they talk to each other? But she couldn’t have them bothering her all the time, not if it meant getting found out. She’d done what she had to, and she’d try not to think about it.

They were just laying on the grass this time. They were a bit bored of chess for the moment. She’d considered bringing another, simpler game, but wasn’t sure Mara would like it. Maybe a fresh opponent would liven things up? Could Fennic keep his mouth shut if she told him? No, he was Fennic. He meant well but he –absolutely- could not.

“Oh also I have to leave early today. My mother needs help with preparing for the church lunch tomorrow.” 

She could just hear the talking to she’d get if she was late. “Never thought I’d see the day when a good pious girl put her chess-playing boyfriend ahead of her own mother,” she’d whine, acting as if the weight of the world was upon her. Percy had never said why she was lugging a chess set to the market every day, actually, but once her mother had come to a conclusion like that, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to change her mind.

“Humans do so many things, it sounds tiring. What’s it like being human?”

“You’re right, there’s so much stuff we’re supposed to be keeping track of all the time. Go to church, go to school, go to work, go to market. We’re always just trying to find time for everything, it’s absurd! Did you know humans even plan our own deaths out ahead of time?” she mimed dropping dead where she lay, her limbs going comically stiff at odd angles where she lay, with her tongue sticking out. “Uuuuuuugh, I’m supposed to be thinking about university admissions soon.”

“University? What’s that?”

“Well, sometimes a person needs to know a bunch of stuff to do whatever it is they want to do with their life. So university is the place where all the young people who need to do that get together and do it. And not everyone wants to go and not everyone gets to go but I thought I wanted to even though I don’t know what I want to do with my life because learning is way easier than doing any of the other stuff I’m supposed to be doing. But it’s really far away, and I’d be gone for at least a year, probably a lot more, and I can’t very well sneak you out with me. So now I don’t think I want to. But if I stay I’ll have to marry one of the guys from around here!” That had been the other reason she wanted to go. All the boys around her village were awful, going to university was probably her best chance at finding a decent one. Well, Romulus and Fennic were interesting to talk to, but some of the things they said were absolutely horrible! She couldn’t really see herself marrying either of them either.

Mara nodded understandingly. “Heard of marry. But what is it?”

“You know how humans pick somebody and stay with them until they die, right? I’ve heard mythos don’t do that?” Mara nodded. “We don’t just pick some other human and it’s done though. There’s like a whole bunch of steps. There’s asking for the blessing, then the proposal, rings, engagement, ceremony, vows and then the kiss and unless I forgot something, after that you’re married. And that’s the point where you’re together forever, way after you picked someone in the first place.”

“All humans do this?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Mara looked thoughtful. “Sometimes farmers kiss the cows.”

If Percy still had any of Mara’s juice in her mouth, she would have spit it everywhere. She laughed. “That’s probably not the same. It’s a special kiss, on the lips.”

“But? All kisses are on lips?” Mara puzzled.

“I mean, your lips go on their lips. That kind of kiss.”

“Hm.”

-

“Finest Antivian razors! Premium prices for a premium product! Ma’am, surely you want to do something about that unsightly hair, can I interest you in a shaving kit?” 

Percy hurried along, upset. She’d decided that if she hadn’t been caught in two weeks looking like she did, it had to be safe to go back to her short sleeved tunic, and then something like this had happened immediately. But did it change anything? In a sense it did, it proved that even if people looked close enough to split hairs, they still somehow weren’t inclined to believe she was half-mytho. Maybe it was just too out there to accept, even when it was staring them in the face. But the hair wasn’t endangering her, regardless. So the question that needed answering was, did she care whether people thought of her as ‘the hairy girl’?

-

Percy swallowed a mouthful of Mara’s cherry juice, and raised her head to look her juicing partner in the eye.

“Is my hair… ugly?” she asked hesitantly, rubbing the fuzz on her skin.

Mara perked up, her attention drawn away from the girl’s chest. “No!” she said, rubbing her face on Percy’s shoulder where the two lay entwined on the soft ground, practically purring as she did so. “Is soft. Nice.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t have any, and you think it’s weird.”

“I have hairs!” Mara said indignantly.

“Really? Where?” Percy asked skeptically, looking over her partner’s body as best she could from where she lay.

Mara eagerly held out one of the leafy vines that sprouted from her head. “Here, feel, underneath!”

Percy gingerly felt the underside of one of the leaves. At first she found nothing, but then she realized that each vein of the leaf prickled her skin slightly, and was in fact covered in innumerable tiny hairs. “Huh,” she said. The vine writhed in her hand. “Ah!” she exclaimed, as it drew itself back in with the rest on its own. “You can move them?”

“Yes.” Mara’s vines drifted gently back and forth through the air, as if she were shaking her head, though her head wasn’t moving at all. “You cannot?”

“No. This isn’t actually alive. It’s just kind of on me. I still need to take care of it though, or it gets all gross.”

Mara looked skeptical in turn. She tugged on a strand of Percy’s hair. “Ow!” Percy exclaimed. Mara’s doubt increased. “It’s attached to me, yeah,” Percy said, irritated, “but watch this.” Mara grasped at Percy as she gently disentangled herself from their embrace. She stepped back over the fence, to where most of her clothes lay, and retrieved her pocket knife. Mara reflexively brought her hand up to her chest and made a little sound when Percy grabbed one of her locks and sliced it off. She held up the hair. “See?”

Mara stared at the hair, fascinated. 

“Do you want it?” Percy asked.

“Does giving hair mean something to humans?” she asked.

“If you were a dashing knight, and I, a fair maiden,” Percy said melodramatically, “then I guess it would. I’m pretty sure neither of us are either of those things, but you can have it anyway.”

Mara came up to the fence and took the hair. She held it under her nose like a mustache. “Human comes by every day and looks like this.” She strutted back and forth, free arm comingup to her chest with each long stride. “Walk around all the time, but I don’t get anywhere!” she said in a deep, sad voice. “Can’t tell whether it’s day or night, better look at my hand!” she said, bringing her wrist up comically close to her face.

Percy laughed. “Is that Mr. Miller??? You sound just like him!”

“Please don’t grow hair like that,” Mara said seriously. “Looks very silly.”

Percy held some of her hair up to her face, making her own mustache. “I dunno, are you sure?” she joked, still laughing.

Mara didn’t laugh. She stiffened, twisting her head to the right. Percy followed her gaze. There stood a hairy sheepwarg, probably almost six feet tall even hunched as he was. Her eyes widened.

*Rrrrr* “Mythos stay on THIS side of fence!!!” he barked, canine jowls quivering. He leapt at Percy, and she dodged to the side! No, she held the chess board up as a shield! No, she did absolutely nothing, frozen in place. 

She was stuck, staring at his pointed, wolflen ears. Those vast, blood-hungry eyes. She knew with certainty she had enough time, in that single icy moment make a reasonable estimate of the number of canine teeth in his spittlefilled mouth, or the angle of curvature to his vicious black claws, but not anywhere near enough to do anything useful before the huge mytho sentry crushed her into a pulp. But just as that moment thawed and he was upon her, something pulled the sheepwarg to the ground with immense force. His chin hit on a fence post on the way down, hard enough to splinter.

 ***AWOOOOO*** The sheepwarg howled. Mara’s hand let go of his tail. He spun, vicious claw puncturing only the air between him and his new opponent. Percy gasped, but even if she did take a small step back, Mara never flinched. The sheepwarg loomed towards over the tiny dryad, a growl rising in his throat.

“She human, dumdum!” Mara yelled, interrupting whatever threat he was about to issue. She gestured at Percy. “Right side of the fence!” Mara stared the angry sheepwarg in the eye, her own pointed teeth bared in a deeply unfriendly smile.

For a moment it looked like the wolfish creature was going to rush her. But then he huffed, and felt his tail to check if it was still attached, and turned his head away poutily, and rubbed his aching tailbone again, and thought better of it. He sniffed the air once. “Human needs to take bath!” he spat bitterly, but stalked off along his patrol.

“ _Bad dog!_ ” Mara whispered jokingly, once he was safely out of sight, eyes full of light, for all the world as calm as if nothing had happened.

Percy kissed her full on the lips.


End file.
